At long last, Google has released an Android version of the popular Chrome browser onto the Android Market as a beta for all Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Similar to it’s PC and Mac brethren, Google Chrome for Android focuses on bringing speed and simplicity to your browsing experience, as well as offering the ability to sync your bookmarks and history across devices.

As with most things Google brings to Android, Chrome has been re-built from the ground up to take full advantage of the smaller screens on our phones and tablets. Chrome for Android features gesture support to move from tab to tab, with support for an unlimited number of tabs so you can browse to your heart’s content. And yes, Incognito Mode will be supported from day one so you can browse those seedy sections of the internet without leaving (much of) a trace.

Highlights of Chrome Beta for Android include:

Browse fast with accelerated page loading, scrolling, and zooming

Search and navigate directly from the omnibox

Open and switch between unlimited tabs in an easy-to-view stack

Sign in to Chrome to sync your bookmarks and view tabs you have open on your computer

Send pages from desktop Chrome to your smartphone or tablet with one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline

Browse privately in Incognito mode

Once you sign into Chrome on your Android device, you’ll be able to view the tabs you left open on another device, get autocomplete suggestions based on your full browsing history, and have your entire suite of bookmarks available at your disposal.

We’ve been able to spend a limited amount of time with Chrome for Android, but I think it’s safe to say that Chrome will completely take over any other browser program we currently have installed. If you have a device that runs Android 4.0, we highly encourage you to head over to the Android Market and give Chrome a download.

They made it ICS only because ICS has native (kernel level IIRC) hardware acceleration support, so it would be much easier for them to implement it into the browser. It could be ported to other devices, but this might come at the cost of losing hardware acceleration, and isn’t Chrome all about speed? Anyway, this is definitely a happy day for ICS users everywhere.

Question: I assume that Google will eventually make it available to pre-ICS devices. At that point, will this replace the browser bundled with the OS — and will apps that make use of the WebView take advantage of the engine of Chrome instead of that crappy built-in browser?

Cant believe they included a swipe action for browser use (switching tabs) by default, effectively stealing it from the page. Not a ton of web sites or apps use the swipe yet, but it’s an important tool in the UI/UX pocket, so it sucks to see Google proper setting this precident.

the swipe action is only triggered from the edge of the touch screen. regular UI on screen web swipes would still trigger. they have this on the ICS browser on the galaxy nexus, but in the form of quick actions that show on screen when you finger the edge.

Just loaded this on my nexus s. SOOOOOOOOO Much faster than the stock browser!
I was not able to load this site on my stock ICS browser with out frequent browser exits/crashes etc. Seemed to load just fine.

Its not buttery smooth on my nexus s but a significant improvement over the stock.. at least thats been my brief experience.

I’m so excited for this! From a quick couple seconds at work, I really like what they’ve done with the interface. I’m a little nervous about the quick tab switching feature by swiping. Overall though, it looks like it’s going to be awesome!

I also love seeing the little Chrome logo to open my internet. It just feels right.

I’ve been using it on my Nexus S running ICS since it was released. It’s fast, and tab-switching is handled perfectly. Wish it had quick controls like the stock browser though, and Flash. For right now though, the stock ICS browser will remain default. I hope Chrome for Android gets extensions, too, like the desktop client.

Must say i like the speed and flow of this, alot better than any other browser although Dolphin is pretty close, but no UA yet and that sucks :( With a screen like my GNex i like to use desktop versions and same on my Transformer Prime :( hope the desktop UA is present in the final release then it will deffo be the best browser out there :D